Posted on 7.6.15: “This may not pass muster with traditional Western devotees (i.e, readers of Cowboys & Indians) but arguably one of the most influential westerns ever made is Johnny Concho (’56), a stagey, all-but-forgotten little film that Frank Sinatra starred in and co-produced. For this modest black-and-white enterprise was the first morally revisionist western in which a big star played an ethically challenged lead character — i.e., a cowardly bad guy.” Here’s the rest of the piece:

George Sidney’s Annie Get Your Gun opened at Leows’ State on 5.17.50.

Dick Powell’s The Conqueror, the Utah-shot battle epic that led to a few cast members getting cancer, opened at the Criterion in March 1956.